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Will less homework stress make California students happier?

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All homework and no play: Bill hopes to lessen stress put on students

Two years ago, Sofia Johnson was on the campaign trail with her mom Pilar Schiavo, who was running for her current seat in the California State Assembly.

What You Need To Know

The healthy homework act would require school districts to consider the impacts homework has on students’ well-being by promoting evidence-based policies instead of just overloading students with busy work california state assemblymember pilar schiavo said the current homework requirements have caused an unnecessary amount of stress for children, as she has seen in her own home research shows that homework is not very effective in helping students learn the material, especially in today’s world the healthy homework act passed out of the assembly education committee and currently faces no opposition. if signed into law, it will go into effect in 2027.

When discussing what a lawmaker has the power to do in the state, then 9-year-old Sofia asked one of the most important questions to any school-aged kid.

“I went to my mom, and I was like ‘hey, can you get rid of homework’ and she was like ‘no, we can’t get rid of homework,’” Sofia said.

While Schiavo can’t get rid of homework, she is doing what she can to help ease the burden put on students by introducing a bill to reform schools’ current homework policy.

The Healthy Homework Act would require school districts to consider the impacts homework has on students’ well-being by promoting evidence-based policies instead of just overloading students with busy work.

“They have to also consider impact [on] mental health, impact on physical health, impact on equity and for students with learning disabilities,” Schavo said. “We think that all of these things need to be considered when we’re coming up with homework policies.”

The lawmaker adds the current homework requirements have caused an unnecessary amount of stress for children, as she has seen in her own home.

“[Sofia’s] doing homework all night until it’s time for bed. She’s eating dinner while she’s doing homework instead of our family having time together and having family dinner,” Schiavo noted.

Dr. Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at Stanford University’s School of Education. The mother of three and former teacher researches the impacts of homework and has found how much stress the workload has put on students.

“It’s often in the top three [of stresses for students], if not the first one. We know that stress is connected to mental health,” Pope said.

Other research shows that homework is not very effective in helping students learn the material, especially in today’s world.

“When it’s busy work and you’re not engaged in it — you’re going to copy, you’re going to cheat,” Pope said. Her research also found that 57% of 15,000 California high school students that were surveyed reported that homework prevented them from getting enough sleep and 45% cited homework as a major source of stress.

Too much homework? New CA bill aims to ease the load on students

Having less homework would be beneficial for some students like Kyan Vanderweel, a San Luis Obispo high school student.

With multiple band and orchestra practices a day, on top of taking AP classes, Vanderweel finds it difficult to balance the things he loves to do with what he needs to get done, saying it even affects his mental health.

“AP classes should have homework but only a limited amount but in my opinion, I don’t think English classes apart from reading should have any unnecessary homework,” Vanderweel said.

Vanderweel says his homework and classwork are very repetitive and he feels it's unnecessary to do some of the homework.

“By the end of the day, we already know what we're doing so I feel like it’s a waste of time to an extent,” Vanderweel said.

Other students feel like homework in high school is bearable.

“I think I'm pretty comfortable with how it is right now,” San Luis Obispo High School student Tamiyah Murrieta said.

The "Healthy Homework Act,” introduced by Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, would not ban homework altogether but would require local school boards and educational agencies to establish policies that consider impacts on students’ physical and mental health with input from parents, teachers and students.

This is something Tyler Gerbel, a San Luis Obispo high school student, says could impact some students.

“Homework has been shown to stress students out a little bit. I’ve felt that myself when I have so much work to do,” Gerbel said.

Although he thinks his workload is manageable right now, he understands how some might have it harder.

“If something is done to limit the homework it might relieve stress off of students and I feel like mental health is a very important thing for students today,” Gerbel said.

The bill is also tailored to people who might not have access to resources at home like high-speed internet.

The bill would require the adopted policy to be updated at least once every five years.

It is currently making its way through the State Legislature.

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California Bans Book Bans and Textbook Censorship in Schools

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Governor Newsom signed AB 1078 (Jackson) to ban book bans and textbook censorship in the state’s 10,000+ schools.

SACRAMENTO — Building on his Family Agenda to promote educational freedom and success, Governor Gavin Newsom today signed AB 1078 by Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson (D-Moreno Valley), which bans “book bans” in schools, prohibits censorship of instructional materials, and strengthens California law requiring schools to provide all students access to textbooks that teach about California’s diverse communities.

WHAT GOVERNOR NEWSOM SAID: “From Temecula to Tallahassee, fringe ideologues across the country are attempting to whitewash history and ban books from schools. With this new law, we’re cementing California’s role as the true freedom state: a place where families — not political fanatics — have the freedom to decide what’s right for them.”

“When we restrict access to books in school that properly reflect our nation’s history and unique voices, we eliminate the mirror in which young people see themselves reflected, and we eradicate the window in which young people can comprehend the unique experiences of others,” said First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. “In short, book bans harm all children and youth, diminishing communal empathy and serving to further engender intolerance and division across society. We Californians believe all children must have the freedom to learn about the world around them and this new law is a critical step in protecting this right.”

“It is the responsibility of every generation to continue the fight for civil and human rights against those who seek to take them away,” said Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson. “Today, California has met this historical imperative and we will be ready to meet the next one.”

“AB 1078 sends a strong signal to the people of California — but also to every American — that in the Golden State — we don’t ban books — we cherish them,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond . “This law will serve as a model for the nation that California recognizes and understands the moment we are in – and while some want to roll back the clock on progress, we are doubling down on forward motion. Rather than limiting access to education and flat out banning books like other states, we are embracing and expanding opportunities for knowledge and education, because that’s the California way.”

Governor Newsom and Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson

AB 1078 provides the Superintendent of Public Instruction the authority to buy textbooks for students in a school district, recoup costs, and assess a financial penalty if a school board willfully chooses to not provide sufficient standards-aligned instructional materials for students. The law also prohibits school boards from banning instructional materials or library books on the basis that they provide inclusive and diverse perspectives in compliance with state law.

While other states ban books, California is making tens of billions of dollars in strategic investments to improve education outcomes and literacy. California outperformed most states — including Florida and Texas — in mitigating learning loss during the pandemic, and through historic levels of school funding, the state is building a cohesive structure of support for educators and students that reflects a focus on equity, inclusion, and academic success.

As part of the Governor’s Family Agenda, California is ensuring parents and caregivers have the opportunity to actively participate in their children’s education. Parents in California have a seat at the decision-making table for key budget, programmatic, and curricular decisions, including the creation of Local Control and Accountability Plans. In the past two years, in partnership with the Legislature, Governor Newsom has required schools to make it easier for working parents to participate in school decisions, invested $4.1 billion to convert one in four schools into community schools with deeper parent engagement, and invested another $100 million in the Community Engagement Initiative for more proactive collaboration with parents.

California provides instruction and support services to roughly 5.9 million students in grades transitional kindergarten through twelve in more than 1,000 districts and over 10,000 schools throughout the state. Education funding in the state is at a record high, totaling $129.2 billion in the 2023-24 budget.

The Highlight

Nobody knows what the point of homework is

The homework wars are back.

by Jacob Sweet

An illustration shows an open math workbook and a pencil writing numbers in it, while the previous page disintegrates and floats away.

As the Covid-19 pandemic began and students logged into their remote classrooms, all work, in effect, became homework. But whether or not students could complete it at home varied. For some, schoolwork became public-library work or McDonald’s-parking-lot work.

Luis Torres, the principal of PS 55, a predominantly low-income community elementary school in the south Bronx, told me that his school secured Chromebooks for students early in the pandemic only to learn that some lived in shelters that blocked wifi for security reasons. Others, who lived in housing projects with poor internet reception, did their schoolwork in laundromats.

According to a 2021 Pew survey , 25 percent of lower-income parents said their children, at some point, were unable to complete their schoolwork because they couldn’t access a computer at home; that number for upper-income parents was 2 percent.

The issues with remote learning in March 2020 were new. But they highlighted a divide that had been there all along in another form: homework. And even long after schools have resumed in-person classes, the pandemic’s effects on homework have lingered.

Over the past three years, in response to concerns about equity, schools across the country, including in Sacramento, Los Angeles , San Diego , and Clark County, Nevada , made permanent changes to their homework policies that restricted how much homework could be given and how it could be graded after in-person learning resumed.

Three years into the pandemic, as districts and teachers reckon with Covid-era overhauls of teaching and learning, schools are still reconsidering the purpose and place of homework. Whether relaxing homework expectations helps level the playing field between students or harms them by decreasing rigor is a divisive issue without conclusive evidence on either side, echoing other debates in education like the elimination of standardized test scores from some colleges’ admissions processes.

I first began to wonder if the homework abolition movement made sense after speaking with teachers in some Massachusetts public schools, who argued that rather than help disadvantaged kids, stringent homework restrictions communicated an attitude of low expectations. One, an English teacher, said she felt the school had “just given up” on trying to get the students to do work; another argued that restrictions that prohibit teachers from assigning take-home work that doesn’t begin in class made it difficult to get through the foreign-language curriculum. Teachers in other districts have raised formal concerns about homework abolition’s ability to close gaps among students rather than widening them.

Many education experts share this view. Harris Cooper, a professor emeritus of psychology at Duke who has studied homework efficacy, likened homework abolition to “playing to the lowest common denominator.”

But as I learned after talking to a variety of stakeholders — from homework researchers to policymakers to parents of schoolchildren — whether to abolish homework probably isn’t the right question. More important is what kind of work students are sent home with and where they can complete it. Chances are, if schools think more deeply about giving constructive work, time spent on homework will come down regardless.

There’s no consensus on whether homework works

The rise of the no-homework movement during the Covid-19 pandemic tapped into long-running disagreements over homework’s impact on students. The purpose and effectiveness of homework have been disputed for well over a century. In 1901, for instance, California banned homework for students up to age 15, and limited it for older students, over concerns that it endangered children’s mental and physical health. The newest iteration of the anti-homework argument contends that the current practice punishes students who lack support and rewards those with more resources, reinforcing the “myth of meritocracy.”

But there is still no research consensus on homework’s effectiveness; no one can seem to agree on what the right metrics are. Much of the debate relies on anecdotes, intuition, or speculation.

Researchers disagree even on how much research exists on the value of homework. Kathleen Budge, the co-author of Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools and a professor at Boise State, told me that homework “has been greatly researched.” Denise Pope, a Stanford lecturer and leader of the education nonprofit Challenge Success, said, “It’s not a highly researched area because of some of the methodological problems.”

Experts who are more sympathetic to take-home assignments generally support the “10-minute rule,” a framework that estimates the ideal amount of homework on any given night by multiplying the student’s grade by 10 minutes. (A ninth grader, for example, would have about 90 minutes of work a night.) Homework proponents argue that while it is difficult to design randomized control studies to test homework’s effectiveness, the vast majority of existing studies show a strong positive correlation between homework and high academic achievement for middle and high school students. Prominent critics of homework argue that these correlational studies are unreliable and point to studies that suggest a neutral or negative effect on student performance. Both agree there is little to no evidence for homework’s effectiveness at an elementary school level, though proponents often argue that it builds constructive habits for the future.

For anyone who remembers homework assignments from both good and bad teachers, this fundamental disagreement might not be surprising. Some homework is pointless and frustrating to complete. Every week during my senior year of high school, I had to analyze a poem for English and decorate it with images found on Google; my most distinct memory from that class is receiving a demoralizing 25-point deduction because I failed to present my analysis on a poster board. Other assignments really do help students learn: After making an adapted version of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book for a ninth grade history project, I was inspired to check out from the library and read a biography of the Chinese ruler.

For homework opponents, the first example is more likely to resonate. “We’re all familiar with the negative effects of homework: stress, exhaustion, family conflict, less time for other activities, diminished interest in learning,” Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, which challenges common justifications for homework, told me in an email. “And these effects may be most pronounced among low-income students.” Kohn believes that schools should make permanent any moratoria implemented during the pandemic, arguing that there are no positives at all to outweigh homework’s downsides. Recent studies , he argues , show the benefits may not even materialize during high school.

In the Marlborough Public Schools, a suburban district 45 minutes west of Boston, school policy committee chair Katherine Hennessy described getting kids to complete their homework during remote education as “a challenge, to say the least.” Teachers found that students who spent all day on their computers didn’t want to spend more time online when the day was over. So, for a few months, the school relaxed the usual practice and teachers slashed the quantity of nightly homework.

Online learning made the preexisting divides between students more apparent, she said. Many students, even during normal circumstances, lacked resources to keep them on track and focused on completing take-home assignments. Though Marlborough Schools is more affluent than PS 55, Hennessy said many students had parents whose work schedules left them unable to provide homework help in the evenings. The experience tracked with a common divide in the country between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

So in October 2021, months after the homework reduction began, the Marlborough committee made a change to the district’s policy. While teachers could still give homework, the assignments had to begin as classwork. And though teachers could acknowledge homework completion in a student’s participation grade, they couldn’t count homework as its own grading category. “Rigorous learning in the classroom does not mean that that classwork must be assigned every night,” the policy stated . “Extensions of class work is not to be used to teach new content or as a form of punishment.”

Canceling homework might not do anything for the achievement gap

The critiques of homework are valid as far as they go, but at a certain point, arguments against homework can defy the commonsense idea that to retain what they’re learning, students need to practice it.

“Doesn’t a kid become a better reader if he reads more? Doesn’t a kid learn his math facts better if he practices them?” said Cathy Vatterott, an education researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. After decades of research, she said it’s still hard to isolate the value of homework, but that doesn’t mean it should be abandoned.

Blanket vilification of homework can also conflate the unique challenges facing disadvantaged students as compared to affluent ones, which could have different solutions. “The kids in the low-income schools are being hurt because they’re being graded, unfairly, on time they just don’t have to do this stuff,” Pope told me. “And they’re still being held accountable for turning in assignments, whether they’re meaningful or not.” On the other side, “Palo Alto kids” — students in Silicon Valley’s stereotypically pressure-cooker public schools — “are just bombarded and overloaded and trying to stay above water.”

Merely getting rid of homework doesn’t solve either problem. The United States already has the second-highest disparity among OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations between time spent on homework by students of high and low socioeconomic status — a difference of more than three hours, said Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University and author of No More Mindless Homework .

When she interviewed teachers in Boston-area schools that had cut homework before the pandemic, Bempechat told me, “What they saw immediately was parents who could afford it immediately enrolled their children in the Russian School of Mathematics,” a math-enrichment program whose tuition ranges from $140 to about $400 a month. Getting rid of homework “does nothing for equity; it increases the opportunity gap between wealthier and less wealthy families,” she said. “That solution troubles me because it’s no solution at all.”

A group of teachers at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, made the same point after the school district proposed an overhaul of its homework policies, including removing penalties for missing homework deadlines, allowing unlimited retakes, and prohibiting grading of homework.

“Given the emphasis on equity in today’s education systems,” they wrote in a letter to the school board, “we believe that some of the proposed changes will actually have a detrimental impact towards achieving this goal. Families that have means could still provide challenging and engaging academic experiences for their children and will continue to do so, especially if their children are not experiencing expected rigor in the classroom.” At a school where more than a third of students are low-income, the teachers argued, the policies would prompt students “to expect the least of themselves in terms of effort, results, and responsibility.”

Not all homework is created equal

Despite their opposing sides in the homework wars, most of the researchers I spoke to made a lot of the same points. Both Bempechat and Pope were quick to bring up how parents and schools confuse rigor with workload, treating the volume of assignments as a proxy for quality of learning. Bempechat, who is known for defending homework, has written extensively about how plenty of it lacks clear purpose, requires the purchasing of unnecessary supplies, and takes longer than it needs to. Likewise, when Pope instructs graduate-level classes on curriculum, she asks her students to think about the larger purpose they’re trying to achieve with homework: If they can get the job done in the classroom, there’s no point in sending home more work.

At its best, pandemic-era teaching facilitated that last approach. Honolulu-based teacher Christina Torres Cawdery told me that, early in the pandemic, she often had a cohort of kids in her classroom for four hours straight, as her school tried to avoid too much commingling. She couldn’t lecture for four hours, so she gave the students plenty of time to complete independent and project-based work. At the end of most school days, she didn’t feel the need to send them home with more to do.

A similar limited-homework philosophy worked at a public middle school in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A couple of teachers there turned as much class as possible into an opportunity for small-group practice, allowing kids to work on problems that traditionally would be assigned for homework, Jessica Flick, a math coach who leads department meetings at the school, told me. It was inspired by a philosophy pioneered by Simon Fraser University professor Peter Liljedahl, whose influential book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics reframes homework as “check-your-understanding questions” rather than as compulsory work. Last year, Flick found that the two eighth grade classes whose teachers adopted this strategy performed the best on state tests, and this year, she has encouraged other teachers to implement it.

Teachers know that plenty of homework is tedious and unproductive. Jeannemarie Dawson De Quiroz, who has taught for more than 20 years in low-income Boston and Los Angeles pilot and charter schools, says that in her first years on the job she frequently assigned “drill and kill” tasks and questions that she now feels unfairly stumped students. She said designing good homework wasn’t part of her teaching programs, nor was it meaningfully discussed in professional development. With more experience, she turned as much class time as she could into practice time and limited what she sent home.

“The thing about homework that’s sticky is that not all homework is created equal,” says Jill Harrison Berg, a former teacher and the author of Uprooting Instructional Inequity . “Some homework is a genuine waste of time and requires lots of resources for no good reason. And other homework is really useful.”

Cutting homework has to be part of a larger strategy

The takeaways are clear: Schools can make cuts to homework, but those cuts should be part of a strategy to improve the quality of education for all students. If the point of homework was to provide more practice, districts should think about how students can make it up during class — or offer time during or after school for students to seek help from teachers. If it was to move the curriculum along, it’s worth considering whether strategies like Liljedahl’s can get more done in less time.

Some of the best thinking around effective assignments comes from those most critical of the current practice. Denise Pope proposes that, before assigning homework, teachers should consider whether students understand the purpose of the work and whether they can do it without help. If teachers think it’s something that can’t be done in class, they should be mindful of how much time it should take and the feedback they should provide. It’s questions like these that De Quiroz considered before reducing the volume of work she sent home.

More than a year after the new homework policy began in Marlborough, Hennessy still hears from parents who incorrectly “think homework isn’t happening” despite repeated assurances that kids still can receive work. She thinks part of the reason is that education has changed over the years. “I think what we’re trying to do is establish that homework may be an element of educating students,” she told me. “But it may not be what parents think of as what they grew up with. ... It’s going to need to adapt, per the teaching and the curriculum, and how it’s being delivered in each classroom.”

For the policy to work, faculty, parents, and students will all have to buy into a shared vision of what school ought to look like. The district is working on it — in November, it hosted and uploaded to YouTube a round-table discussion on homework between district administrators — but considering the sustained confusion, the path ahead seems difficult.

When I asked Luis Torres about whether he thought homework serves a useful part in PS 55’s curriculum, he said yes, of course it was — despite the effort and money it takes to keep the school open after hours to help them do it. “The children need the opportunity to practice,” he said. “If you don’t give them opportunities to practice what they learn, they’re going to forget.” But Torres doesn’t care if the work is done at home. The school stays open until around 6 pm on weekdays, even during breaks. Tutors through New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development programs help kids with work after school so they don’t need to take it with them.

As schools weigh the purpose of homework in an unequal world, it’s tempting to dispose of a practice that presents real, practical problems to students across the country. But getting rid of homework is unlikely to do much good on its own. Before cutting it, it’s worth thinking about what good assignments are meant to do in the first place. It’s crucial that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds tackle complex quantitative problems and hone their reading and writing skills. It’s less important that the work comes home with them.

Jacob Sweet is a freelance writer in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, among other publications.

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Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?

Is homework an outdated, ineffective or counterproductive tool for learning? Do you agree with the authors of the paper that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students’ home circumstances?

Or do you agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value?

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Do you think the amount is appropriate, too much or too little? Is homework, including the projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or, in your opinion, is it not a good use of time? Explain.

In these letters to the editor , one reader makes a distinction between elementary school and high school:

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

What do you think? How much does grade level matter when discussing the value of homework?

Is there a way to make homework more effective?

If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework

Two brothers work on laptop computers at home

H ow long is your child’s workweek? Thirty hours? Forty? Would it surprise you to learn that some elementary school kids have workweeks comparable to adults’ schedules? For most children, mandatory homework assignments push their workweek far beyond the school day and deep into what any other laborers would consider overtime. Even without sports or music or other school-sponsored extracurriculars, the daily homework slog keeps many students on the clock as long as lawyers, teachers, medical residents, truck drivers and other overworked adults. Is it any wonder that,deprived of the labor protections that we provide adults, our kids are suffering an epidemic of disengagement, anxiety and depression ?

With my youngest child just months away from finishing high school, I’m remembering all the needless misery and missed opportunities all three of my kids suffered because of their endless assignments. When my daughters were in middle school, I would urge them into bed before midnight and then find them clandestinely studying under the covers with a flashlight. We cut back on their activities but still found ourselves stuck in a system on overdrive, returning home from hectic days at 6 p.m. only to face hours more of homework. Now, even as a senior with a moderate course load, my son, Zak, has spent many weekends studying, finding little time for the exercise and fresh air essential to his well-being. Week after week, and without any extracurriculars, Zak logs a lot more than the 40 hours adults traditionally work each week — and with no recognition from his “bosses” that it’s too much. I can’t count the number of shared evenings, weekend outings and dinners that our family has missed and will never get back.

How much after-school time should our schools really own?

In the midst of the madness last fall, Zak said to me, “I feel like I’m working towards my death. The constant demands on my time since 5th grade are just going to continue through graduation, into college, and then into my job. It’s like I’m on an endless treadmill with no time for living.”

My spirit crumbled along with his.

Like Zak, many people are now questioning the point of putting so much demand on children and teens that they become thinly stretched and overworked. Studies have long shown that there is no academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.”

In elementary school, where we often assign overtime even to the youngest children, studies have shown there’s no academic benefit to any amount of homework at all.

Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health, brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good health and real learning . Even top adult professionals in specialized fields take care to limit their work to concentrated periods of focus. A landmark study of how humans develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work only about four hours per day .

Yet we continue to overwork our children, depriving them of the chance to cultivate health and learn deeply, burdening them with an imbalance of sedentary, academic tasks. American high school students , in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found.

It’s time for an uprising.

Already, small rebellions are starting. High schools in Ridgewood, N.J. , and Fairfax County, Va., among others, have banned homework over school breaks. The entire second grade at Taylor Elementary School in Arlington, Va., abolished homework this academic year. Burton Valley Elementary School in Lafayette, Calif., has eliminated homework in grades K through 4. Henry West Laboratory School , a public K-8 school in Coral Gables, Fla., eliminated mandatory, graded homework for optional assignments. One Lexington, Mass., elementary school is piloting a homework-free year, replacing it with reading for pleasure.

More from TIME

Across the Atlantic, students in Spain launched a national strike against excessive assignments in November. And a second-grade teacher in Texas, made headlines this fall when she quit sending home extra work , instead urging families to “spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get your child to bed early.”

It is time that we call loudly for a clear and simple change: a workweek limit for children, counting time on the clock before and after the final bell. Why should schools extend their authority far beyond the boundaries of campus, dictating activities in our homes in the hours that belong to families? An all-out ban on after-school assignments would be optimal. Short of that, we can at least sensibly agree on a cap limiting kids to a 40-hour workweek — and fewer hours for younger children.

Resistance even to this reasonable limit will be rife. Mike Miller, an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., found this out firsthand when he spearheaded a homework committee to rethink the usual approach. He had read the education research and found a forgotten policy on the county books limiting homework to two hours a night, total, including all classes. “I thought it would be a slam dunk” to put the two-hour cap firmly in place, Miller said.

But immediately, people started balking. “There was a lot of fear in the community,” Miller said. “It’s like jumping off a high dive with your kids’ future. If we reduce homework to two hours or less, is my kid really going to be okay?” In the end, the committee only agreed to a homework ban over school breaks.

Miller’s response is a great model for us all. He decided to limit assignments in his own class to 20 minutes a night (the most allowed for a student with six classes to hit the two-hour max). His students didn’t suddenly fail. Their test scores remained stable. And they started using their more breathable schedule to do more creative, thoughtful work.

That’s the way we will get to a sane work schedule for kids: by simultaneously pursuing changes big and small. Even as we collaboratively press for policy changes at the district or individual school level, all teachers can act now, as individuals, to ease the strain on overworked kids.

As parents and students, we can also organize to make homework the exception rather than the rule. We can insist that every family, teacher and student be allowed to opt out of assignments without penalty to make room for important activities, and we can seek changes that shift practice exercises and assignments into the actual school day.

We’ll know our work is done only when Zak and every other child can clock out, eat dinner, sleep well and stay healthy — the very things needed to engage and learn deeply. That’s the basic standard the law applies to working adults. Let’s do the same for our kids.

Vicki Abeles is the author of the bestseller Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation, and director and producer of the documentaries “ Race to Nowhere ” and “ Beyond Measure. ”

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Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

Posted January 17, 2012
By Lory Hough

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

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Should We Ban Homework?

The cons of homework are starting to outweigh the pros.

Recent research shows that teenagers have doubled the amount of time they spend on homework since the 1990s. This is in spite of other, well-documented research that calls the efficacy of homework into question, albeit in the younger grades. Why are students spending so much time on homework if the impact is zero (for younger kids) or moderate (for older ones)? Should we ban homework? These are the questions teachers, parents, and lawmakers are asking.

Bans proposed and implemented in the U.S. and abroad

The struggle of whether or not to assign homework is not a new one. In 2017, a Florida superintendent banned homework for elementary schools in the entire district, with one very important exception: reading at home. The United States isn’t the only country to question the benefits of homework. Last August, the Philippines proposed a bill to ban homework completely, citing the need for rest, relaxation, and time with family. Another bill there proposed no weekend homework, with teachers running the risk of fines or two years in prison. (Yikes!) While a prison sentence may seem extreme, there are real reasons to reconsider homework.

Refocus on mental health and educate the “whole child”

Prioritizing mental health is at the forefront of the homework ban movement. Leaders say they want to give students time to develop other hobbies, relationships, and balance in their lives.

This month two Utah elementary schools gained national recognition for officially banning homework. The results are significant, with psychologist referrals for anxiety decreasing by 50 percent. Many schools are looking for ways to refocus on wellness, and homework can be a real cause of stress.

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Research supports a ban for elementary schools

Supporters of a homework ban often cite research from John Hattie, who concluded that elementary school homework has no effect on academic progress. In a podcast he said, “Homework in primary school has an effect of around zero. In high school it’s larger. (…) Which is why we need to get it right. Not why we need to get rid of it. It’s one of those lower hanging fruit that we should be looking in our primary schools to say, ‘Is it really making a difference?'”

In the upper grades, Hattie’s research shows that homework has to be purposeful, not busy work. And the reality is, most teachers don’t receive training on how to assign homework that is meaningful and relevant to students.

Parents push back, too

In October this Washington Post article made waves in parenting and education communities when it introduced the idea that, even if homework is assigned, it doesn’t have to be completed for the student to pass the class. The writer explains how her family doesn’t believe in homework, and doesn’t participate. In response, other parents started “opting out” of homework, citing research that homework in elementary school doesn’t further intelligence or academic success.

Of course, homework has its defenders, especially in the upper grades

“I think some homework is a good idea,” says Darla E. in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook. “Ideally, it forces the parents to take some responsibility for their child’s education. It also reinforces what students learn and instills good study habits for later in life.”

Jennifer M. agrees. “If we are trying to make students college-ready, they need the skill of doing homework.”

And the research does support some homework in middle and high school, as long as it is clearly tied to learning and not overwhelming.

We’d love to hear your thoughts—do you think schools should ban homework? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, why you should stop assigning reading homework.

Dear Parents: Please Stop Asking Teachers To Give Your Kids Homework

If your kid's teacher isn't assigning homework, it's for a good reason. Continue Reading

THE SUSPENSION OF HOMEWORK IN THE PHILIPPINES

Temps de lecture : 16 min de lecture
Auteur/autrice de la publication : education_south
Publication publiée : 2 juin 2022
Post category: Pédagogie
Commentaires de la publication : 3 commentaires

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By Joreen Domingo Varly

To the 29 000+ Filipino readers/viewers over the past 3 months, Maraming Salamat po!

INTRODUCTION

Homework or homework assignment has been an inevitable part of a pupils’ academic journey. An academic task that includes a period of reading, writing that has to be completed, textbook exercises to answer, Mathematics problems to be solved, some information to review for the previous or next lesson, and some activities to practice skills.

The primary purpose of giving a homework is to reinforce and increase pupils’ knowledge and improve their learning abilities. This will encourage pupils to engage in active learning. This also promotes a pupil-parent communication and collaboration between pupils.

But many schools are rethinking homework, some have cut down on the amount they give each week, and others no longer allow weekend assignments. Some have eliminated homework entirely.

Source : OECD (2014)

THE PHILIPPINES’ Suspension of Homework

In September 2010, a memorandum from the Department of education was circulated (and passed on to all the bureau directors, regional directors, school division/city superintendents and Heads of Public elementary school). The Deped Memorandum No.392 S.2010 highlights the suspension of homework during the weekend. This is to address the concern of parents regarding the amount of time the pupils consume in accomplishing their homework, instead of having an enjoyable and quality time with their family. This memorandum also intends to ease the pupils’ burden about the thought of doing plenty of homework.

In August 2019, the 118 th Congress – Senate Bill No. 966 (authored by Senator Grace Poe) or the proposed “No Homework Law” has been filed. This is a senate bill banning teachers from giving homework to students from kinder to Grade 12 on weekends.

The bill stated that all primary and secondary schools in the country shall not allow teachers to give any network or assignments to students. Under the proposed measure, teachers may only assign homework to students on weekends provided that it be minimal and will not require more than four hours to be completed. The policy will be applied on both public and private schools.

“Further, it looked at homework hours around the world and found that there wasn’t much of a connection between how much homework students of a particular country do and how well their students score on tests” , the bill read.

Citing a 2014 study from the OECD based on PISA data, the senator noted that additional time spent on homework has a negligible impact on the performance of students after around four hours of homework in a week. In OECD countries, for example, advantaged students spend 5.7 hours per week doing homework, on average, while disadvantaged students spend an average of 4.1 hours per week.

No homework policy

The Department of Education (DepEd) expressed its support on this filed bill of “No homework policy” saying that it would help learners find balance between personal and academic growth. Since they had been advocating for an all-inclusive learning regime for Filipino students, to include out of the classroom schooling, a policy that will, in effect, restrict teachers from giving homework to students from kindergarten to Grade 12. In hopes that the concept will enable Filipino learners “to find balance between their academic development and personal growth by having ample time for enjoyable activities with family.”

Up to this date, the proposed bill is not yet approved. Apparently, there is need to be circumspect and judicious. The DepEd memorandum of 2010 is still the ruling guideline on giving homework to pupils.

A pupil doing his homework after school.

Summary of pros and cons of homework

Let’s look into the summary of homework’s pros and cons:

Source : Joreen Domingo-Varly

NEWS : SEAMEO Secretariat and the Department of Education, Philippines commit to the next phase of SEA-PLM Programme

The SEAMEO Secretariat Director, Dr Ethel Agnes Pascua-Valenzuela, and the Secretary of Education, Philippines, H E Dr Leonor Magtolis Briones, signed the Memorandum of Understanding to spearhead the implementation of activities under the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) 5-Year Strategic Plan, including the SEA-PLM 2024 Survey. The MoU signing ceremony took place in the Office of the Secretary Building at the Department of Education in Manila on Monday, 02 May 2022.

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Cet article a 3 commentaires.

Félicitations à Joreen d’évoquer un problème en émergence dans les pays africains. Au Cameroun où je passe la majorité de mes observations, le problème de” saturation des activités intellectuelle” gagne du terrain, encouragé par cette frénésie de faire avancer les enfants sans respecter le rythme bio-physiologique des enfants. Tenez par exemple, les congés c’est à partir du 10 juin au primaire. Immédiatement, les “saturalistes” ont déjà programmé des cours de rattrapage pour le mois de juillet. Quand est-ce que le cerveau de ces enfants va se reposer? Commençons à mener des réflexions dans ce sens. Châpeau Joreen/

Thanks! Actually I’ve been looking if it has been approved or not yet, then I saw you blog. I know the Finnish almost 100% do not give homework. As a math teacher, in my class, I started not giving them homework (years before the pandemic) even though the bill has not been passed yet.

https://news.yahoo.com/theres-only-far-them-why-123134730.html

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What's Happening?

Is homework necessary? Senate bill seeks to ban homework on weekends

PUBLISHED ON February 16, 2023

HOMEWORK no more?

A bill seeking to establish a no-homework policy for all elementary and junior high schools in the country is now before the Senate.

Under Senate Bill No. 1792 filed by Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., assigning homework during weekends will be prohibited.

But if ever students will be tasked to do schoolwork on weekends, this will only be on a voluntary basis.

According to the bill, homework should only be assigned on weekdays, provided that it shall be “minimal and will not require more than two hours to be completed.”

Too much homework won’t help

Revilla, in his explanatory note, said a 2009 study conducted by The Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment (OECD-PISA) showed that additional time in doing homework has a negligible impact on students’ performance.

The study also found out that there is a connection between more homework and the students’ increased level of anxiety, which leads to low motivation in school work.

“The productivity and attitude of kids towards education is lowered, which in turn leads to more dropout rates and lesser grades. Relatedly, less homework creates more parent-child time that allows the child to engage in more co-curricular activities,” he said.

Instead of spending more time completing their homework, children should instead have enough time to rest and relax their mind, which will then increases their capacity to comprehend.

“In view of ensuring the welfare of the learners in this post pandemic era, the immediate approval of this bill is most earnestly sought,” he added.

The bill also aims to expand the circular issued by the Department of Education (DepEd) in 2010 ,which served as the guideline in assigning homeworks public elementary schools pupils.

The DepEd’s memorandum states that giving of assignments shall be limited to reasonable quantities, and that no homework shall be given during weekends so that pupils will have enough time to rest and to spend quality time with their parents.

In 2019, the DepEd also signified its support for a similar bill filed before the House of Representatives.

“By ensuring that they complete all assignments and projects in school, the no-homework policy enables our learners to find balance between their academic development and personal growth by having ample time for enjoyable activities with family,” the DepEd said in its 2019 statement.

Meanwhile, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, also in a statement in 2019, said that more than the homework issue, Congress should do a comprehensive assessment and review of the K to 12 program.

“[H]omework has become an inevitable part of teachers’ and students’ work due to the ‘unrealistic’ K12 curriculum,” ACT said.

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Lawmakers managed to bolster funding for new literacy programs and took the first step to giving student teachers the financial support they say is needed to stick with 12 weeks of classroom training. Otherwise, it was a policy-driven year, with attention given to curbing excessive cellphone use and keeping kids in school and libraries free of book-ban politics .

"Students must be the center of our focus, and this legislation puts attention squarely on our kids," state Rep. Laurie Pryor, DFL-Minnetonka, chair of the House Education Policy Committee, said of the education policy bill approved in the session's closing days.

Here's what they did and some homework they left for later.

Curbing in-school cell phone use

In an effort to keep students on task and to lessen the risks of cyberbullying, the state is requiring every school district and charter school to set cellphone use policies by March 15, 2025.

The legislation is not prescriptive, but state Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, and Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, made clear this year they'd like schools to be cellphone-free — and they pointed to success at a pair of middle schools where students must keep their phones locked up or out of sight.

The state's principals association will advise districts on ways to minimize the effects of cellphones on student behavior, mental health and academic achievement.

Keeping kids in school

School attendance has suffered post-pandemic and lawmakers have responded by establishing a legislative work group to study chronic absenteeism in the coming months. In addition, 12 districts are being asked to come up with "promising practices" that ensure students get to class.

Minneapolis Public Schools is to take the lead and will receive $1 million of $4.7 million in state aid being dedicated to the effort. The 12 districts must conduct their first virtual meeting by Aug. 1.

The legislative work group is charged with recommending how best to tackle absenteeism and truancy, and must issue a final report by Dec. 31.

Matt Shaver, policy director with EdAllies, a group that works closely with underserved communities, said the action was a "start," but a "big deal," too, given limits on new funding this session.

Funding for teachers and student teachers

A year ago, the state passed the Read Act, which tasked teachers with learning a new way to teach kids to read. But districts were left wondering about long-term funding and the time available to train personnel.

There was the question, too, of how to pay teachers for their time learning , so lawmakers this session allocated $31.4 million to districts, charter schools and cooperatives to compensate teachers as they dig into programs placing a greater emphasis on phonics.

A pair of training deadlines were extended by a year, too.

Croonquist said the Read Act funding "certainly is appreciated, but it's not going to cover all of the costs."

The state also set out to ease the financial burden on student teachers who prepare for the profession by working weeks for free. A pilot program will supply a total of $6.5 million in stipends to student teachers enrolled at eight Minnesota colleges and universities.

Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota, commended lawmakers for finding ways to invest in current and future teachers during a tight budget year.

"Every Minnesota student deserves a great teacher who has the support and financial security they need to focus on the work," Specht said in a news release.

Banning bans on books

Another new measure prohibits book bans in schools and public libraries. The move comes at a time when books focusing on multiracial and LGBTQ themes have been removed from shelves at libraries across the U.S.

Students need access to books with "characters like themselves and their families," Specht said, praising the new policy.

Republicans said the legislation was unnecessary because book ban campaigns have been infrequent here.

What didn't happen this session

A proposal to open rigorous courses to more students of color failed to advance, as did a proposed expansion of early learning scholarships to middle-income families . But the state Department of Education is receiving $7 million to establish the logistical groundwork to make the expansion happen.

Ericca Maas of the advocacy group Think Small said the move was an "important vote of confidence" in the fight to make child care more affordable to more families.

Anthony Lonetree has been covering St. Paul Public Schools and general K-12 issues for the Star Tribune since 2012-13. He began work in the paper's St. Paul bureau in 1987 and was the City Hall reporter for five years before moving to various education, public safety and suburban beats.

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New Hampshire Senate passes bills to allow book banning, uncertified teachers

CONCORD — Protesters sat quietly outside the New Hampshire Senate room on Wednesday, reading books.

They were there to show opposition to an amendment attached to House Bill 1311 that bill sponsor Rep. David Paige, D-Concord, said would turn it into a "book banning bill."

As originally written, HB 1311 , also known as the “Students’ Freedom to Read Bill,” would’ve required school boards to adopt transparent and clear procedures for addressing book removal requests, and that those policies could not exclude books based solely on an author or subjects’ identity as a member in a protected class like race or sexual orientation.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Timothy Lang, R-Sanbornton, introduced the amendment.

“As amended by the Senate Education Committee, House Bill 1311 provides a uniform collection reconsideration process for school libraries and media centers,” said Lang. “Materials should not be prescribed or procured primarily based on the author’s sex, or subject’s sex, age, gender identity, race, creed, origin, orientation, or disability. Further, the material’s procurement cannot be predicated on a given viewpoint.”

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Paige said the changes of adding the word "primarily" and expanding the bill to the procurement of materials would open the door for discriminatory reasons to be considered as factors in the exclusion of the materials, as long as it’s not the “primary” reason, as well as make it harder for educators to develop inclusive collections.

“Let's imagine you have an immigrant community that's come to your city. What this bill, if it passes as amended, will say is you can't choose to buy a book specifically because you want better representation of that new immigrant community in your town,” said Paige. “That disservices every student, the immigrant student who's trying to see themselves in the curriculum and the collection, but it also disservices all the other students in the store need to get to know their new neighbors.”

Deb Howes, the president of the American Federation of Teachers in New Hampshire, said the bill as amended would set up potentially two “conflicting and confusing” procedures for acquiring and reconsidering school library materials that could potentially lead to a lawsuit.

The Senate voted to pass the bill as amended by voice vote with little discussion on the floor, though Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, D-Portsmouth, spoke in opposition. It was one of three education bills the Senate passed Wednesday that New Hampshire teachers unions opposed; the others included HB 1298 , which creates an uncertified “part-time teacher” role in schools, and HB 1665 , which expands eligibility for the education freedom accounts program.

Senate expands education freedom account program

On one of the few roll call votes of the day, the Senate voted along party lines, 14-10, to expand the education freedom account program by raising the annual household income of the applying student to 400% of the federal poverty guidelines.

The EFA program allows families to use some of the state funding that would go to their child’s public school toward private school or home-schooling expenses instead.

“I believe parents deserve choice in education,” said Lang. “I've said it before, we've heard it before, I have four kids, all of them learn differently. All of them deserve the best education possible.”

Lang added that change in the percent of federal poverty guidelines is also necessary for inflation.

“Can we just stop pretending that the EFA were ever for low-income families,” said Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, who spoke in opposition to the bill. “Let's drop the pretense that the effort to kneecap our public schools with death by 1,000 cuts and drawing more and more money out of our Education Trust Fund to stand up for what essentially amounts to a second school system that we throw money at with absolutely no oversight.”

Both Howes and Megan Tuttle, the president of NEA-New Hampshire, released statements against the bill.

“Public dollars belong in public schools. Period,” said Tuttle. “Any vote to expand the state's unaccountable voucher scheme — yet again — is a vote to divert even more taxpayer funds from public schools, which are attended by more than 165,000 Granite State students.”

“The state of New Hampshire is still failing to meet its constitutional duty to fully fund its public schools,” said Howes. “Remember, this is also the same Legislature that earlier this year decided feeding hungry children in public schools, whose families earn up to 350% of the poverty level, was too expensive. The vote to expand school vouchers does not reflect Granite State values and is not what voters want.”

Part-time teachers won't have to be certified if bill is signed into law

HB 1298 would end the requirement for part-time teachers to hold a state Board of Education credential, provided they work less than 30 hours a week, pass a criminal record check, and follow the educator code of conduct. It passed the Senate on a voice vote.

Sen. Carrie Gendreau, R-Littleton, said the bill would mitigate teacher shortages and enhance New Hampshire schools.

Sen. Sue Prentiss, D-West Lebanon, said that while she’s not against bringing in a special educator from the community to schools, she sees the bill as creating a “secondary system that could start to break apart the fundamental profession of teaching in the state of New Hampshire.”

Tuttle said teachers are professionals who have undergone education programs that allow them to effectively serve their students.

“Studies have shown that teacher quality is the most powerful indicator of student achievement within the school,” Tuttle wrote in a statement following the vote. “While New Hampshire is grappling with a teacher shortage issue, this bill is misguided and will negatively impact Granite State students by lowering standards for teachers in our public schools."

As all the bills were amended in the Senate, they will go back to the House for another vote.

Editor's note: State Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, is the wife of Howard Altschiller, Seacoast Media Group's executive editor.

Homework Ban

A child holds a pretend mind control device and colander with wires attached on her head. Another child looks unimpressed.

X (formerly Twitter)

NAT: Hey, Nat here, let's see what's making news. Poland has just banned homework. Yes, that's right no homework ever. For lower primary students anyway. Here's Wren.

DAKOTA: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

JACK: Yeah. Let's move to Poland.

DAKOTA: No, let's make a mind control device so we can make the Prime Minister ban homework in Australia.

JACK: Okay.

Yep, over here in Poland, kids are here living the dream. Homework is now banned for students in years 1 to 3 and for students in years 4 to 8, it's optional and won't count towards grades.

OLA: I am happy because this homework, I did not like it too much and it didn't really make much sense because most people in my class, in the morning would copy it from someone who has done the homework.

JUILAN: It's a little bit uncool that there is no more homework. But when there is no homework, that's also rather cool.

The Polish government decided to make the big move. After a moment that went viral at a campaign rally in the lead up to the parliamentary elections were a 14-year-old decided to make a stand for all Polish kids.

MACIEK, PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENT: This is a general problem of Polish schools that children's rights are being violated. For example, the right to take some rest. There is homework to be done during weekends, tests on Mondays, and so much homework is given us that we find no time for rest.

A lot of people agreed with Maciek. Before the ban, Polish kids spent around 1.7 hours per day on homework, which is more than a lot of other countries, and some experts questioned whether or not it was doing any good.

BARBARA NOWACKA, POLISH EDUCATION MINISTER: When I read research regarding the mental health of children, their overload with learning, the reasons of depression, of tensions, stress, or loss of interest in learning, one of the factors, the one that could be removed fastest, was the burden of homework.

Some studies have shown that while homework can be handy for high school students in primary school it doesn't necessarily help you learn and it takes up time that could be better spent doing things like hanging out with friends, playing sport, or doing other creative stuff.

STUDENT: I don't mind it but I still feel like it's a waste of time.

STUDENT: Because you could do everything else? Like you could do exercise? You could, like, play games.

On the flipside, fans of homework say, it can be a good way of making sure all the stuff you've learnt at school sticks in your head, and getting your parents involved in your learning. It can also teach you how to work independently, and to help you get ready for high school and university.

STUDENT: You can research more, and you have more time to catch up.

STUDENT: My grades have gone up a lot because of doing homework.

Some parents and teachers in Poland aren't on board with the ban, which they say happened too quickly and without enough consultation. So, could something like this happen here? Well, right now it's not on the cards and it's up to schools to decide their own homework policies. Unless of course…

DAKOTA: Three, two, one. JACK: Did it work? DAKOTA: Probably not.

Recently the Polish government decided to ban homework in lower primary and make it optional in upper primary. It’s a move that’s been welcomed by many kids although not all adults think it’s a good idea. We find out more about the debate over homework and whether or not it helps kids to learn.

Justina Ward, Reporter

BTN Classroom Episode 10, 2024

In this episode

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Should Homework Be Banned?

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Homework Debate

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Should Homework be banned? Newsround

Bill to ban cell phone use in public school passes Senate, heads to governor’s office

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — A proposed bill on banning cell phones in public schools passed the Senate on Wednesday, May 22.

Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 207 , sponsored by state Sen. Beth Mizell (R-La.), with a 36-0 vote. It now heads to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk.

SB207 states that any cell phone or additional communication devices should not be on “his person” or must be powered off and put away for the entire duration of the school day if brought to the campus.

The bill also says that students will be prohibited from turning the device on and using it throughout the day.

Present law details that cell phones are prohibited from being used by students on school grounds or school buses unless authorized by school administrators.

The bill would take effect during the 2024-25 school year if it is signed by Landry.

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Bill to ban cell phone use in public school passes Senate, heads to governor’s office

IMAGES

Petition · Ban homework · Change.org
Bill introduced to ban homework?
Top 17 reason Why Homework Should Be Banned
Homework should be banned
Should Schools Ban Homework?
17 Reasons Why Homework Should Be Banned

COMMENTS

Will less homework stress make California students happier?
The bill analysis cites a survey of 15,000 California high schoolers from Challenge Success, a nonprofit affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education. It found that 45% said homework was a major source of stress and that 52% considered most assignments to be busywork. The organization also reported in 2020 that students with higher ...
California bill to ban large loads of homework in public schools ...
(FOX40.COM) — A new bill introduced in the legislature is taking aim at banning excessive homework in California public schools. "Homework is exhausting. It's overwhelming, " said sixth ...
Schiavo bill aims to alleviate student stress, change homework
Assembly Bill 2099, introduced earlier this year by Schiavo and sponsored by four other Democrats in the Assembly, does not ban homework, Schiavo said, but directs public school districts to ...
New California bill pushes for schools to give less homework
A new California bill introduced in the State Assembly asserts that giving elementary school students hefty amounts of homework does not result in higher academic achievement. Assemblywoman Pilar ...
All homework and no play: CA bill hopes to lessen stress
All homework and no play: Bill hopes to lessen stress put on students. By Daniela Pardo and Jackson Ellison Sacramento. PUBLISHED 4:30 PM PT May 02, 2024. Two years ago, Sofia Johnson was on the campaign trail with her mom Pilar Schiavo, who was running for her current seat in the California State Assembly.
Too much homework? New CA bill aims to ease the load on students
New CA bill aims to ease the load on students. Having less homework would be beneficial for some students like Kyan Vanderweel, a San Luis Obispo high school student. With multiple band and ...
Will less homework stress make California students happier?
And while Assembly Bill 2999 — which faces its first big test on Wednesday — is far from a ban on homework, it would require school districts, county offices of education and charter schools ...
California Bans Book Bans and Textbook Censorship in Schools
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Governor Newsom signed AB 1078 (Jackson) to ban book bans and textbook censorship in the state's 10,000+ schools. SACRAMENTO — Building on his Family Agenda to promote educational freedom and success, Governor Gavin Newsom today signed AB 1078 by Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson (D-Moreno Valley), which bans "book ...
Why does homework exist?
The homework wars are back. by Jacob Sweet. Feb 23, 2023, 3:04 AM PST. Jiayue Li for Vox. As the Covid-19 pandemic began and students logged into their remote classrooms, all work, in effect ...
Should We Get Rid of Homework?
The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students.
California's new law bars book bans. Here's what else it does
DAVIS, Calif — Effective immediately, California schools are no longer allowed to ban books after Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assemblybill 1078into law. Due to the bill's urgency clause ...
Why Homework Should Be Banned From Schools
American high school students, in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found. It's time for an uprising. Already, small rebellions ...
Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Bill that Requires ...
Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Bill that Requires Curriculum Transparency. DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 1467, which requires school districts to be transparent in the selection of instructional materials, including library and reading materials. As a part of the Year of the Parent, this legislation aims to ...
Are You Down With or Done With Homework?
These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn. "Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of ...
Should Schools Ban Homework?
Another bill there proposed no weekend homework, with teachers running the risk of fines or two years in prison. (Yikes!) While a prison sentence may seem extreme, there are real reasons to reconsider homework. Refocus on mental health and educate the "whole child" Prioritizing mental health is at the forefront of the homework ban movement.
The Suspension of Homework in The Philippines
This is a senate bill banning teachers from giving homework to students from kinder to Grade 12 on weekends. The bill stated that all primary and secondary schools in the country shall not allow teachers to give any network or assignments to students. Under the proposed measure, teachers may only assign homework to students on weekends provided ...
PDF No homework bill
A Bill for an Act to ban homework in all Australian schools. Later, the Speaker may ask you to read the title of the bill again. You say: The No Homework Bill. A Bill for an Act to ban homework in all Australian schools. When the Speaker says 'the House is now adjourned', stand and say: Honourable members, please stand.
Bill aims to give students 'no homework' weekends
MANILA, Philippines — Saying children are "overworked" with 10 hours spent at school on weekdays, Tutok to Win Rep. Sam Versoza has filed House Bill No. 8243 — the proposed "No Homework
Is homework necessary? Senate bill seeks to ban homework on weekends
A bill seeking to establish a no-homework policy for all elementary and junior high schools in the country is now before the Senate. Under Senate Bill No. 1792 filed by Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., assigning homework during weekends will be prohibited. But if ever students will be tasked to do schoolwork on weekends, this will only be on a voluntary ...
No-homework bills filed
Vargas' bill, unlike Escudero's, would impose a fine of P50,000 or imprisonment of one to two years on teachers who would violate the no-homework condition. Your subscription could not be ...
'No-homework' policy bill filed in Senate
A Senate bill banning teachers from giving homework to students from kinder to Grade 12 on weekends has been filed. MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Grace Poe filed a Senate bill banning teachers to ...
Ban weekend homework for overworked Filipino pupils, says lawmaker
First published on Thu 25 May 2023 04.45 EDT. A lawmaker in the Philippines has proposed banning schools from setting homework at weekends, saying students are overworked and need to recharge. Sam ...
What school bills passed in Minnesota this year?
Classroom cellphone use, a prohibition on book bans and a push to address poor attendance were among the education measures approved by the Legislature. It also found funding to assist student ...
Governor DeWine signs bill requiring Ohio schools to create cellphone
Governor DeWine signs bill requiring Ohio schools to create cellphone policies. 5/20/2024. Last week, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 250 at Karrer Middle School in Dublin. The new law will require every school district in Ohio to establish an official policy governing cellphone usage during school hours and seeks to minimize student use of cell phones in K-12 schools.
NH Senate passes bills to allow book banning, uncertified teachers
NH Senate passes bills that would ease book banning and allow uncertified part-time teachers in public schools. ... They were there to show opposition to an amendment attached to House Bill 1311 ...
Homework Ban
Before the ban, Polish kids spent around 1.7 hours per day on homework, which is more than a lot of other countries, and some experts questioned whether or not it was doing any good.
Bill to ban cell phone use in public school passes Senate, heads to
BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — A proposed bill on banning cell phones in public schools passed the Senate on Wednesday, May 22. Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 207, sponsored by state Sen. Beth ...